Retail-leisure village to replace Sears store

Seritage Growth Properties is to replace a Sears site next to Aventura (Fla.) Mall with an open-air retail shopping village. The 215,000-square-foot space will contain stores, restaurants, entertainment tenants, and a pedestrian boulevard and plazas, according to the Miami Herald. Work began today on demolishing the 12.3 acre site’s Sears and Sears Auto Center buildings.

The move seems part of a retail industry trend to provide more reasons for people to visit malls and shopping centers, by making retail centers into destinations that foster social interaction.

Many of the retailers that will occupy Esplanade at Aventura — as the new center is to be called — will be new to Florida, and most of the restaurants will be linked to famous chefs, Seritage President and CEO Benjamin Schall told the newspaper.

“The orientation of this project is one of an abundance of indoor and outdoor space, but also [of] creating gathering areas and making them interactive,” he said, “so that consumers have technology and other ways for them to interact with those settings, which keeps it relevant trip after trip.”